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Category: Bible

Un-Fathered

Published by mhelbert on July 16, 2020

Unseen vistas reveal themselves with every step I take into the world of God. I have walked the oft-trodden, yet rarely observed paths of the Spirit as She blows through the brilliant flowers, trees, and grasses that form the lines of the Scriptures.
It seems that the more I observe and marvel at, more and more beauty and grace appear.

This is not to say that the paths that the Breath of God leads me along are always pleasant for me. No, sometimes I am stung by some insect that follows me. Buzzing in my ear, brushing against my hair and skin, it is a reminder that the paths we walk are still real and within the bounds of this present life.
I read in those ancient texts stories of people who, like me, worried their way along these same pathways. They were led by the same Spirit. Perhaps, they were even stung by that same bothersome insect.
And, while their time and place are foreign to me, I can still feel what they felt and sense what they sensed.
We are, after all, born of the same stuff.

That’s why the text that we looked at last Sunday in the Bible study at St. Barnabas became alive to me in a brand, new way. There was a new vista revealed as I crested the hill.

We have spent the last several weeks working our way through the first 4 chapters of St. Paul’s first letter to the Church at Corinth. Paul wrote that he had been made aware of divisions and factions that had broken along the fault lines of honor and shame. The folks there seemed to find their own sense of honor and worth by casting their lots with one apostle over against another. This one follows Paul; the other Apollos. Paul would have none of that and wrote that the system they used to measure worth was deeply flawed. Through example, irony, and metaphor he urged them to seek the One True Measure which is God through Christ. If the folks at Corinth desired true Wisdom, they need look no further than the Cross of Christ. That, alone, exemplified God’s Wisdom.

In chapter 4, Paul seems to shame the people in that young Church. He pointedly revealed the foolishness of the path that they were taking.
But, he switched gears and told them,

“I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children.”
He continued,
“I became your father through the gospel.”

There it was!
A new sun rising above the horizon of my limited understanding.
Paul wrote this letter, not to wield a rod of correction. It was not so that he expound some great, spiritual truth to them. It wasn’t even really to cajole them into following his instructions.

It was to remind them that he was their father in the faith.

The folks in Corinth had Un-Fathered Paul.

And, that was the cause of much of his pain and concern.

I was reminded, then, of another story like this.
In the Gospel According to Luke the writer related a story about a father and his two sons.
This story is commonly referred to as the story of the Prodigal Son, although the Father is the main character.
The story begins with the younger of the two sons going to his father and requesting his inheritance. This may not appear all that big of a deal to those of us inhabiting the 21st century. However, at the time this story was told, that request would have been scandalous. What we miss is that the request was, in fact, the younger son’s wish that the father was dead so that he could take what he deemed was his.

“Father, I want my inheritance!”

To that the father could reply,

“When I die you will receive it!”
“No, Father, I want it NOW! For, you are dead to me”

That’s how this story would have been heard by those Jesus told it to.
How much this reveals about the Father’s love later in the story!
But, that’s a story that must wait for another time.

The younger son un-Fathered his own father.
He wished that his father HAD died.
His only concern was his own life and desires.

I saw this story brightly reflected in Paul’s response to his Children in the Faith.
I could feel his sense of loss and betrayal.
I could understand his heart as he tried to reveal the potential danger that these children of his were running toward.
“Stop! Wait! There’s a cliff there and you’re about to run off of the edge!”

For those who have experienced the pain of this type of loss, I don’t need to explain it.
For those who haven’t, well, let’s all just hope and pray that you never do.
It is pain above any other. Especially, because of the helplessness that is alive and biting, boring into the heart and soul.
Yeah, I get what Paul was doing here.
He was simply being a loving father to those who owned a piece of his heart.

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What Did Paul Really Say?

Published by mhelbert on June 16, 2020

As many of you know, (by many, I mean all 3 of you!), I have been helping out at St. Barnabas by facilitating a Bible study for the last year or so. We have followed the texts that were selected for each week in the Lectionary of the Book of Common Prayer. It has been a good time to take a closer look at the texts that were read during worship every week.
But, now I have decided to change things up a bit.
I have wanted to look closely at Paul’s letter to the Church at Corinth for about 6 months. In my own reading and devotional time I recognized similarities between the folks living in that ancient place and our own post-modern Western culture.
Granted that social constructs and cultural mores and practices were vastly different and foreign to anything we know today. But, as I continue studying these ancient texts and read the work of sociologists and anthropologists who write about those times, the more I realize that “people is people is people” regardless of time and place.

So, this past Sunday we began at the beginning of 1 Corinthians.

The first thing that we had to realize is that we were truly reading someone else’s mail. Contrary to what many may think about this text, it was not written to us. It was written by Paul for a specific group of people for a specific reason. Understanding that fact goes a long way to getting even a small handle on the text’s purpose and meaning.
What this means in practical terms for interpretation is that we CANNOT take the words Paul wrote out of their contexts and simply plop them down into 21st century U.S. and apply them like some kind of rulebook or users’ manual.
Note that I wrote “contexts,” plural. There is the obvious context of the letter itself. All of the words written in this particular missive. However, there are cultural and social contexts that bear on ALL of the words written. These contexts are foreign to us. They must be considered along with the text itself if we have any hope of understanding Paul’s purpose in writing.
Too many in Fundagelical circles do just that and completely miss what the text is really attempting to say.

With that in mind we look for hints that can provide us with a better understanding of what an inspired Paul may have been attempting to communicate. Once we discover that, then, perhaps, we can glean something that can help guide us in our own pilgrimage through this life together.

As we began the study we saw that Paul was very much a product of his era. The form and content of the letter conform nicely to the epistolary forms of the day. He began with a greeting that introduced himself, his credentials, and the person who was with him, presumable as a helper.
After the greeting he offered a Thanksgiving for those to whom he wrote. In typical Graeco-Roman style, the Thanksgiving hints at issues or topics that will be addressed at length later in the letter. He praised the Corinthians for their wisdom and spiritual awareness. Nothing unusual at all about this. For, in fact, these are issues that Paul will deal with quite forcefully later in the letter.

Then, Paul wrote what many believe was his Thesis. The over-arching concern that will drive the letter forward.
He wrote,


“Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (1 Co 1:10). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

Apparently, there were, in fact, divisions within the young Church at Corinth. Paul will go on to speak to these divisions. And, he will condemn them.
In fact, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that in ALL of Paul’s writings his main concern is for the Unity of the Faithful in their communities.
He doesn’t advocate for ‘sameness,’ as some people tend to think. But, his goal and primary concern is for Unity in Diversity.

This takes work…Hard. Work.

In the above quote the words translated, “United in the same mind and the same purpose,” could be better translated, “United in the same Mindset and the same Consent.”
Paul desired for the folks at Corinth to be focused on the same goal as followers of Jesus. As he continues through the letter we see that the people in the nascent Church really didn’t understand the power of their calling. They seemed more enamored by the Cult of Personality that they could attach themselves to. “I belong to Paul! I am on Team Apollos!
No, Cephas is the Best! Yeah, you’re all wrong, I belong to Christ!”
Just like today, people are hooking their wagons to personalities and causes that do nothing more than stir up strife, mistrust, and hatred.
“MAGA!” “I follow Joe!” “My heart is in Dixie!”

However, the second part of that clause states that Paul desired the Corinthians to have the same “consent.”
The wording may seem strange to us. But, the gist of it is clear.
While we affirm the diversity that exists, we must also Consent to live within the Unity of who we are as people.
That requires me laying aside some of my ideas and prejudices for the sake of Unity.
If I am going to truly Love Others, I cannot demand all of my own rights and privileges at their expense.
It’s hard work.
No one ever said that living together is easy. I mean, for those of us who have been married, we get that.

Paul began this letter with a call for Unity in the fledgling Community of Faith at Corinth.

Paul’s words beckon us still toward that goal.

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Why Follow Jesus?

Published by mhelbert on May 18, 2020

Of course, there are many reasons why people choose to follow Jesus.
“He was a great teacher,” some say.
Others may reply as his original disciples did, “You have the words of Life.”
Many, perhaps too many, say that they follow Jesus because of the promised blessings.
And, still others say that they are worried about an eternity in hell. Jesus provides them with the necessary fire insurance.

None of those reasons are really very good.
I mean, the Buddha was a great teacher. As were Confucious, Moses, and Muhammed.
These, and others, have also laid claim to having the words that lead to a full and satisfying life. Granted, other than Muhammed, the others don’t promise any blessings. But, Jesus is still not unique in this. Where hell is even mentioned, there have been many who profess a way to avoid it.

So, again, why should anyone follow Jesus?

The following text was one of the lections for worship yesterday,

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
29 “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge cthe world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ac 17:22–31). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

Within that short passage are the words,
“That they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”

Those few words have been grasped by folks who, in our post-enlightenment, post-modern Western culture, take that as a promise that everyone has a chance to know God if they only pay attention to the world around us.
God may be found in the delicate beauty of a flower or in the awesome vastness of the night sky. After all, Paul stated that God was the Creator of the world and all that is in it. We should be able to recognize God’s Hand in all things.
And, if we can detect God this way, then we may worship God as the true God worthy of our worship.
So, those religions that focus on nature may have a better understanding of the Creator God than others.

If that’s true, then again I ask, Why follow Jesus?

If there are ways to know God other than what the Christian Church has taught, what makes this Church special?

Again, back to Paul.

The context for the above passage tells the reader that Paul arrived in Athens after he was chased out of Thessonlinica and Berea by Jews who didn’t like him talking about a crucified Messiah.
While in Athens Paul walked around town observing things. He became distressed at all of the temples and idols that were there. So, he began to proclaim Jesus and the resurrection to the Jews in the synagogue and to anyone who would listen to him in the Agora, the marketplace.
Eventually, some of the locals decided that Paul was teaching about some foreign deity. They led him to the Areopagus where there was apparently a council who judged whether a philosophy or religion would be permitted to be taught in the city.
They questioned Paul, asking about this strange, new teaching.

Paul immediately opened his résumé that confirmed his status as a teacher of this new religion. After observing how religion was of great importance in Athens, he pointed out how he had spotted an altar To An Unknown God.
He said, “Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.“
This is not to say that the Athenians truly worshiped God when they worshiped before this altar. How could they? They did not even know who this God was!

Paul stood before them and proclaimed, (the word that was used was one that inferred a Prophetic speech), Jesus the Messiah and His resurrection.

And, that’s part of the reason, Why follow Jesus.

Yes, God may be observed in Nature. God may be observed in some human actions like empathy and self-sacrifice.
But, rather than this developing a true Natural Theology, it invariably results in Natural Idolatry. This was the gist of Paul’s statement when he wrote to the Church at Rome,

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.”

New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995). (Ro 1:20). La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.

So, followers of Jesus have the privilege of letting people know who the Unknown God is.
We may share that this God is not far away, but is near to each of us. We are all part of God’s Grand Story. Those who follow Jesus are the storytellers who also are those who welcome others into God’s family.

Of course, writing this post like this begs the question,
What is that story?
Why is it worthwhile hearing?
Those questions are ones that I hope to muse on in upcoming posts.
So, I invite you along as we hear,
Once Upon a Time there was this God…

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Kenosis

Published by mhelbert on May 3, 2020

5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.

The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (1989). (Php 2:4–11). Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

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Freedom

Published by mhelbert on April 26, 2020

When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

“The Spirit of the LORD is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the LORD’s favor has come.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them.

“The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Tyndale House Publishers. (2015). Holy Bible: New Living Translation (Lk 4:16–21). Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers.

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Telling Our Story

Published by mhelbert on April 22, 2020

I remember well a particular moment in seminary. One of my professors included in our syllabus a book by a guy named Brian McLaren. The book was titled, “A New Kind of Christianity:Ten Questions That are Transforming the Faith.” The reason that he assigned this particular book was because he knew that some time in our ministry we would run across the kind of heresy that McLaren advocated. He wanted us to be able to recognize it and to refute it.
So, I read the book.
And, it changed my life.
I recognized myself in those pages. A questioner. A skeptic. A thinker.
Instead of preparing me to do battle against this post-modern heresy, McLaren provided me with language to understand what I was already thinking.
For me, knowing that there were others like me out there, this was a moment when a lock on the chains that had me bound to abusive religion clicked open.

If that sounds like a pitch for the book, ok, it kind of is.

However, as I’ve grown and reflected on my faith there is at least one area of McLaren’s book where I take issue.

In the book he provided a couple of images that contrast two views of how the Bible is read and understood.
The first way is how many people in Western evangelicalism understand it.
For them, the Bible is like a Constitution of a nation. It contains the rules of government and the laws that people must follow. For many, like me, this distills to the Bible simply being a Users’ Manual or a rule book. It contains the do’s and don’t’s that make humans somehow palatable to an angry God. Follow the rules and you win. Break them and, well, just don’t.

McLaren offered an alternative image.
He wrote that the Bible should really be taken as a library. In it are 66 separate books that contain the stories of God’s interaction with humanity. Especially, God’s love for us. These books come in all shapes, sizes, and genres. There are legal books. There are stories to titillate our senses. There is poetry and narrative and correspondence. When we read each according to the genre we may glimpse a bit of God’s heart. We may begin to understand the love and pathos that God “feels” toward the Cosmos.

That was just what I needed to hear at that point of my journey in faith. It opened up a whole new way to think theologically. In fact, as I wrote a couple days ago, I had some new encouragement just to “Think”!

Now, however, I’m beginning to view the Bible in a slightly different way. Not to say that McLaren was mistaken. No, I see the point that he made and don’t totally disagree with it.
I’m just not sure that he took the idea far enough.

Long before I went to seminary, I was becoming convinced about the error of reading the Bible as a rule book. That idea just didn’t sit well with me. I considered it more as story.
Specifically, a love story about Yahweh’s love for us. I couldn’t articulate what I was thinking exactly. Mostly because I wasn’t sure of what a ‘story’ actually was.
I did know, however, that I liked me a good story!
From the Three Little Pigs to Tokien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, I loved immersing myself in the worlds that these stories inhabited.
Now, having learned more about the craft of writing and doing a bit of writing myself, I’m more convinced than ever about the Bible’s coherence as Story.

From Genesis 1 to Revelation there is One story being told.
This story has a protagonist: God.
God is the main character throughout the entire story. God is responsible for all of the action. The Creation story is all about God acting to bring order from chaos and build a world in which every creature could thrive and grow.
God’s activity contains act of power. A flood; a crumbling tower; plagues.
Eventually, God’s greatest act of power was through God’s own love for the Cosmos. This was shown to us through the life, death, and resurrection of God’s own Son, Jesus.

The story also contains the necessary antagonist. And, it’s not who you may think.
The true villain in this story is Sin. He shows up early in the story and stands in opposition to God and God’s purposes on virtually every page.
Now, you may have thought the antagonist was that guy we call Satan. Well, this character is there, for sure. He is better known as the adversary. But, Sin is the one who actually calls the shots. Satan only exploits what Sin has already done.

There is a coherent plot to this story.
In the beginning there is an idyllic world where all of God’s creatures lived and thrived in peace. God chose humanity to be God’s helpers in caring for this world. However, this plan was turned upside down by the entrance of the antagonist, Sin, using the Adversary as the means of disruption.
The entire rest of the story is about God’s plan to set things right.
Yeah, you read that correctly.
THE ENTIRE REST OF THE STORY!

As every good story goes, there is a time when an apparent solution is presented. This shows up by way of the giving of Torah to the people who God chose to work with, Israel.
This turns out to be a false solution. Torah, as good as it is, could not restore humanity or the creation to the way that God intended.
Through many subplots and characters the condition of the Cosmos seems to spiral toward a nasty and messy end. In fact, it appears that all hope is lost. God cannot make things right.
Nothing takes our hope away and dashes it on the rocks of despair more than when the story introduces a new character…Jesus.
It seems that maybe this guy can be the One who finally performs the miracle of restoring the Cosmos. Yay! Look at him healing people and talking about God’s Kingdom peeking over the horizon signalling a new dawn of hope! Again, order coming out of chaos.

But, then, the story does what a good story must. It shows us that, alas, all hope is indeed lost. This new character, the One who seemed to be able to bring God’s good creation to fruition,
Dead and buried.

This would have been a pretty sad story if it had ended here.
Darkness and despair defeating Light and hope.

But, the story didn’t end there.
We find out that Jesus really was God’s Person of the hour.
God’s faithfulness to God’s Purposes and Covenant was vindicated.
The new creation had, in fact, begun.
And, the Good News of all of this is that all of humanity, already part of the story, can join with God in order see this new creation grow and prosper.

Ok. I can read the papers, too.
The world is not a new Eden.
It is still a horrible mess.
And, it will be until the time when we all get to the end of the story.
And, no, I don’t know what that end will look like.
I do know what it won’t look like, though.
There will not be a mass escape by humans who think that God is going to rescue them before God completely destroys the World. That idea isn’t in the book. In fact, it goes against everything else that the story was trying to build.
It won’t be a theocratic dictatorship where everyone walks around bowing in obeisance to some glowing deity sitting on a huge throne somewhere.
And, it definitely won’t be a place where smug survivors smile and say, “At least I’m not like those ‘sinners’ who got fried”!

Yeah, the Bible is a long story of God’s faithfulness to the Cosmos. There are a lot of twists and turns along the way. There is drama and tragedy. There is love and war. There is despair and hope. And, lots of action.
All elements of a good story.
So, rather than reading the Bible like a rule book or a collection of different and disparate books in a library, maybe we should begin to read it as One Story with many chapters. Although there are many different subplots and characters coming and going, it is still the same story.

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On A Positive Note…

Published by mhelbert on April 16, 2020

I have spent a lot of time over the years trying to expose the negative side of the Church.
The abuses of authority; the harmful theology; the elevation of ME above all else.
These criticisms are well deserved. People have been harmed by the Church. And, it really doesn’t matter what flavor Church. Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox are all culpable in the abuses.
The public results of these abuses, besides lives ruined, includes the loss of any claim to the so-called Moral High Ground.
In other words, the Church has destroyed her ability to be a Blessing to the Cosmos.

So, what should things look like?
Honestly, no one can say for certain what God has planned for it.
But, we can sketch a few things.
Things that, rather than tearing down, may reveal a way forward in Love and Faithfulness.

So, let’s start.
In the beginning….

The writers of Holy Scripture were people just like us. They lived in a particular time, place, and culture that colored the words that they wrote. So, for them such things as a cosmos that was created Ex Nihilo was just the way things were.
These writers presented their readers with a problem. The problem was, God created the Heavens and the Earth. In God’s abundant Love humans were made for the expressed purpose of caring for the Earth as God’s Special Envoys. The intent was for humanity to embody God’s glory as Eikons of God. They would rule jointly with God over the creation.
But, there was a problem. Humanity could not live up to God’s calling. They were, after all, made of the same stuff that the cosmos was…dust.
Soon the problem came to a head when humanity took it upon themselves to listen to and embrace other creatures. Idolatry and the corruption that comes with that began to mar the Very Good Cosmos that God had made.
But, God was still convinced that humanity MUST be a part of God’s plan for guiding and caring for the World.
So, God ‘elected’ a family.
For those who know a little about the story of Israel, you will have heard of a guy named Abraham. God chose Abraham and his descendants to become the agents of God’s blessing for the Cosmos. The story continues through Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, to the selection of a community, Israel.
Israel’s history was checkered at best.
But, God had made a covenant with Abraham that, because of Abraham’s faithfulness to God’s promises, stated that the entire Cosmos would be blessed.
God took that Covenant seriously and was faithful to it in spite of Israel’s inability to live up to its calling.
In time, God, who had chosen Israel as the people through whom the blessing would come, raised up One Person from Israel.
This One Person became God’s own Image-bearer. An image-bearer who would do what the original humans, nor Israel, could.
Through the death of Jesus the problem of humanity’s inability to live up to God’s Glorious Calling at the beginning was solved. The resurrection of Jesus from the grave proved God’s faithfulness to set things right.

Ok, nice story.
But, so what?

God had done something that no one expected.
Because of the faithfulness of Jesus, all of humanity had the opportunity to share in Jesus’ faithfulness. We, in fact, have been joined together into the family of God’s Promise to Abraham. We are benefactors of God’s Covenant with Abraham.
God, in God’s own love and Being, put us into a Community.
A living Community where God’s own Spirit lives and brings life.
We are not a bunch of individuals going about our own personal business. Living in our own personal salvation.
No.
We are, as Peter wrote, ‘A royal priesthood and a Holy Nation.’

We. Belong. Together.

Together we are to be a blessing to the whole Cosmos.
Together we reflect the Glory of God to each other, to God, and to the World.
Together!
Together!

That is our hope and our calling.
And, that’s a good thing.

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The Rugged Individual

Published by mhelbert on April 15, 2020

One of the hallmarks of life in the U.S. is the ideal of the “Rugged Individual.” While it seems that this image had been brewing ever since the birth of the nation, it really didn’t take off and become a mark of American exceptionalism until after the Second World War.
We have become a nation where everyone considers their right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness is a personal guarantee that no one, especially not the government, can tell me what I can do, when and where I can do it, or ask me why I’m doing it. After all, the Constitution says so.
Of course, when the Constitution says that I can do something that you want to do and there’s a conflict, my rights always supersede yours. And, if you don’t like it, we’ll see you in court. Because, you know, my rights are given to me by no lesser authority than God!

What escapes most people’s attention is that those so-called ‘God given rights’ are not in the Constitution.
They appear in the Declaration of Independence. And, as I have said in many other places, Context is everything.
The Declaration, besides being a rallying point for the nascent United States, was first a notice to King George III that the American Colonies would no longer put up with British rule. The inalienable rights part, especially the God given wording, let George know in no uncertain terms that God was the only source for these rights. The crown was not.

So, there was a war and a new nation was born that began a long experiment in democratic government that is still under way today.

Soon, individuals began trekking into the wilderness of this land. They fought and worked and died in order to provide for themselves and their families.
It didn’t matter what obstacles lay in their path toward this inevitable destiny. They had a God given right to this land and its bounty. So, facts like the land was already populated by Indigenous people were tossed aside.
“God gave this land to us. Not to you.” (But, that ‘s another post.)

As I began to deconstruct the Ziggurat that was my protestant, evangelical life, I started to wonder about this.
To explain a bit…
In Protestantism individual faith is paramount. After all, Jesus died for me. Yeah, he may have died for you, too. But, that’s between you and God and doesn’t effect me at all.
It’s all about Me and Jesus! Hallelujah!
In the church that I was a part of at that time this was absolutely the underlying ethic to their theology. It was no more apparent than when, once a month, we had Communion. We asked that the head of each family, or family unit, would come and take the bread and cup back to their individual clan. There the elements would be taken. I questioned the leaders about this. Because, to me anyway, it seemed that the celebration of Communion should be a community celebration. Not an individual family thing. This seemed more like a fracturing of the Body of Christ than a joining together in communal Thanksgiving.
Silly me for thinking such things!

Eventually, I did leave that church. There are many, many reasons why. But, that idea of fracturing the Body of Christ is near the top.

Here, in an admittedly compressed version, is what I have learned, and am convinced of, since my departure.
The church I left, and all of those churches that think that same way, follow a modern version of Reformation theology. Every individual is a sinner in need of grace. Ok, so far so good. This thinking also leads to the idea that every individual is responsible for how they live that faith. That pretty much means that I can do what ever I believe God wants me to do.
Of course, there are the big ‘Sins’ that must be avoided. But, if it’s not listed as sin, then I’m good to go.

That idea has driven much of our Western culture as it formed over the ensuing 500 years. It led, inevitably, to our old friend the Marlboro Man. It is readily displayed in the people who yell about their own rights. Just look at the churches that are openly defying stay at home orders during the current Covid-19 crisis. Their rallying cry?
“No government can tell me what to do! My God is bigger than you. And, My God has given me the inalienable right to gather. So what if the virus is spread among the congregation and then back to their homes and friends and family.”

And yet, the very Bible that these people tell us that they believe in and follow is clear.
“Consider others above yourself.”
“Anyone who tries to save their own life will lose it.”
All of the letters written by the Apostle Paul are attempts to build communities who live their lives sacrificially in order to display God’s mercy to the world.
The idea that we are all just individuals who should live our lives in isolation from one another would be totally foreign to the people who actually wrote the Book.

As I wrote before, the in the Body of Christ there is no room for me; my; mine. It is always “Us.”
We are a community.
We must live like it.

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There’s Madness in My Method…Or Something Like That

Published by mhelbert on April 9, 2020

Some of you may be wondering why I have suddenly gone off on some weird theological tangent.
“Why is he getting so worked up over something like this? It doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on in the real world right now!”

I get that.
It does appear that I’m taking something that is not relevant pretty damned seriously.
Especially, something that I don’t really have any control over.
I mean, who am I to presume that my tiny brain and even tinier voice could have any impact on something as deeply entrenched as Western Christianity.


And, you would be right!

My voice is like a whisper in a hurricane.

That doesn’t give me a pass, though.
For, at this particular moment in time the Voice in my heart speaks loud enough.
That Voice compels me to speak.
If only to one other person.

So, back to the question I asked.
Why does this call for a new Reformation get me worked up?
Why should I, or anyone, care?

I’m glad that you asked that question!

I believe with all of my heart that the Faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah and the trust that Paul, Peter, and all the rest of the nascent Way of Jesus was misunderstood by those who followed them. Particularly, those who, I’m sure in good faith, tried to reconcile a specifically Jewish narrative with the prevailing Hellenistic world.
The introduction of the philosophies of Greece, particularly Aristotle and Plato, in effect
co-opted Israel’s story and planted it firmly in soil that was unable to sustain the growth that Jesus, Paul, et al had begun.

Ok. So what?

In the Greek mind, as I wrote yesterday, the rich tapestry that was Israel’s story was reduced to binaries.
Good/Bad; Black/White; Us/Them.
Paul’s theology was likewise reduced to fit this worldview.
What had been a beautiful Gospel of hope in the God of Abraham to reconcile the Cosmos was turned into a Frankenstein’s monster of Greek pieces with Biblical language used to justify the creation of such an aberration.

The result?

A dualism that allowed theologians to find in the Scriptures a way for humans to gain entry into some Ideal, Spiritual realm called “Heaven”. While at the same time creating a necessary antithesis to this called “Hell.”

The Gospel, and the Church at Large, became a means by which humans could receive salvation for their Immortal Souls.
From there it was a very short step to compelling people to assent to some Church prescribed proposition that would somehow, (magically?), insure that they would one day walk with God in heavenly places while avoiding the Inferno that awaited Everyone Else.

Today, that’s pretty much the same false gospel that churches foist on unsuspecting people.

What? You want proof?

Look around!
So called ‘evangelists’ standing with bullhorns on college campuses yelling at people to Repent or Burn!
Evangelical groups standing at the entrance to clinics that offer Women’s Health care abusing women who may be at the most vulnerable time of their lives.
People carrying signs outside of funeral homes that carry the message, “Death to Fags!”
Scamvangelists like Paula White who is a counselor to donald trump.
Hate mongers like Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham who speak of God’s love out one side of their mouths while proclaiming eternal hellfire for anyone who doesn’t buy into their particular form of religious belief.
Bircher and false prophey Tim LaHaye.
Pseudo-Historian and christian nationalist David Barton.
The dangerous heresy of the Seven Mountains.
The damnable blasphemy that states the God. Hates. Your. Guts.
Indigenous Genocide.
Manifest Destiny.
The wholesale destruction of our environment by people who believe, (Falsely), that God has mandated that humans subdue and use, (re. ‘Exploit’), the environment.
The fact that I cannot walk into any Evangelical church without anxiety rearing up in my chest and mind.
How about that thousands and thousands of people who have been abused by those who preach such a hateful message?

Need I continue?
I surely can.

All of this…ALL OF THIS…is the result of humans who were deceived into believing a false gospel.

So, I write and I speak.

Do I claim to have all the answers to these issues?

Oh, hell no!

But, I do know a fake when I see it.
And, the Western Church, by and large, supports and acclaims a false gospel.
The true Gospel is one that reveals God’s love, not only for humans, but for the entire Cosmos.
The true Gospel has the power to reconcile, not divide.
Paul wrote that in Messiah Jesus there are no walls to separate.
There is neither Jew nor Greek; Free nor Slave; Female nor Male.
We can extrapolate this to say that there is neither Black nor White; Gay nor Straight; Republican nor Democrat.

The bastardization of the Gospel cannot say any of those things.
It sole purpose is to divide.
There is Saved and Damned; Believer and Pagan; Us and Them.

May that Gospel be damned!

So, yeah.
I’m worked up about this.
It’s of paramount importance to me to speak against these abuses and Blasphemies.
Yeah. I said it. The “B” word.
That’s what that false gospel truly is.

So, there it is.
And, I will continue to speak out.
At least as long as I must.
If that bothers you, well ok.
But, not sorry.
If you have similar thoughts and feelings, please share this.
Perhaps our collective voices may amplify these abuses until people begin to notice.

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A New/Old Paradigm

Published by mhelbert on April 8, 2020

I think that I wrote somewhere else that during this time of healing and life changes that come with retirement, my brain has been awash in “stuff.”
Thoughts and ideas flit about like Lake Erie midges gathering above the trees in June.
Millions of them creating an undulating cloud and an eerie whine as they search for a mate in the few hours of life granted to them.

Such, it seems, are the clouds of thoughts in my head.
And, just as difficult to grasp.

There are, however, moments when something breaks away from the cloud and comes closer for a better look.
One of these has been a thought that I have considered and wrestled with for the better share of the last year.
That is the question:
“Who are You really…God?”

I think that is the correct way to frame my inquiry.
I’m not interested in knowing about God. As in, what is God like or what are the attributes of God. Those questions are for the systematic theologians. And, if you know me at all, I have no interest in systems. They always fall short of whatever aim the theologian intends. And, they always only provide that theologian’s opinion. For me, that’s so much useless information.

Really, I think that any question that doesn’t deal with the “Who” issue is always going to fall short of the mark.

And, I believe wholeheartedly that the religious forms that have developed since about the 3rd or 4th century have completely missed this.
As far back as Origen the tendency of theologians has been to try to explain what happened in the 1st century through the lens of Hellenistic philosophy. After all, that was the natural habitat for all of Greek culture. The consequence of this was, and is, a Christianity that is steeped in the world of Neo-Platonism. (I have mentioned this in previous posts.)

This influence, I believe, has skewed the story of Jesus and the early church in a very unhelpful and unhealthy direction.
From Augustine through the Patristic Period, Greek philosophy shaped and molded what we now see as a deeply flawed and needy Church.
Luther and Calvin received this notion from the Fathers and, building on a flawed foundation, compounded many of the errors and misconceptions inherited from that earlier time.

This led me to my last post pointing out a need for a new Reformation.

So, why do I think like this?
Can’t I just accept that people who were smarter than me and who wrestled with all of this for centuries have created a building that must stand, no matter what?

In a word…
No.

I question things. I ask and ask and ask.
Sometimes I come up with plausible answers.
Most of the time, I just end up with more questions.

In this case, though, I need to look back a few years.
Even before I started seminary I wondered about some things.
One of those things was the unquestioning acceptance of how a human is put together. In the Western Church a person is said to be made up of a body and a spirit. Sometimes a third component, a soul, is thrown into the mix.
In this concept, at least in the Evangelical world that I once inhabited, the body was viewed as flesh. It followed it’s appetites and those appetites always led to a bad place. In a not so uncommon view, the body/flesh was, is, and always will be fraught with evil.
On the other hand, the spirit is something that is dormant in most people. It’s only when God breathes life into it does it spring back to life and works to draw the person into a closer relationship with God. So, the spirit is a good thing.
What most people don’t see in this is that it is completely Platonic. It pits the lesser, the body, against the ultimate, the spirit. It is also sot through and through with what is known as Gnosticism. Again, the physical is evil and the spiritual is good.

Both of these ideas are, quite simply, mistaken.
They have no basis in Scripture nor the heritage from which the Church has its roots.

I have believe since those early days when I began to ask these questions that everything that we can know about God, Jesus, the Spirit, or the Biblical text comes to us from the story of Israel and Israel’s God.
So, why didn’t the Church search for its identity there?
As a quick example to think about…
The illustration I shared above about the way a person is made up of various and disparate parts would have been completely unrecognizable to someone in 1st century Judaism. In the Scriptures, this person would say, a person is a single, living soul. Period. There is no dividing into parts.
For these early theologians in the Greek world, the thoughts of anyone from the backwaters of Palestine would have been incomprehensible and ignored.
(Of course, the defense could be raised that they were simply doing theology and trying to make sense of God in their own context. An admirable pursuit. But, that will always render a qualified and relative answer that must be taken with a large chunk of salt.)

This was the beginning of my search for the Who is God question. Because, if we don’t even know anything about Who is a Human, how can we know anything about God? If we can’t get the questions right, we will never come close to finding answers.

This has been the focus of much of my prayer, contemplation, and study for the last year.
Of course, the question that I ask can not be adequately answered by anyone. We can, however, make certain deductions and come to some conclusions that may help to carry the conversation forward.

And, that might just shed some light on where God may be directing God’s people as we muddle our way forward.
I hope so, anyway.

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